New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman is getting dumped on for supposedly sitting on a big story that former President Donald Trump clogged White House toilets by trying to flush ripped up pieces of paper.
It was a pretty big-ass scoop, one that many people felt that Haberman should have reported sooner rather than saving for her upcoming book, “Confidence Man,” according to the Independent.
Haberman isn’t the first person charged with holding vital information about the Trump administration in order to presumably juice book sales. Bob Woodward and John Bolton also faced similar accusations.
But Haberman decided she wasn’t going to take that kind of crap and defended herself on CNN Friday.
Haberman insisted she did not know about Trump’s supposed document dump when he was in office, and said she’s “not known for, you know, sitting on scoops if I have information.”
She said she found out about Trump’s toilet antics after he was out of the White House and pointed out that the information isn’t exactly being held for her book.
“That book is not out for eight months, and so I am trying to get this information out as fast as possible because I think it’s relevant,” she said. “Do I know that it is particularly meaningful in terms of what pieces of paper ended up where? We don’t. I don’t want to suggest that, you know, I know more than I do, right?”
Haberman said she thought the toilet story was relevant and “would not want someone thinking that I knew this in real time because I didn’t.”
You can see her exchange with John King below.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.